New Computer April 28, 2001 I finally sprang for a new computer last week; (an unexpected refund cheque from Revenue Canada helped with the costs.). This time around I knew a little more than last time; so I did some homework and came up with the following configuration: AMD Thunderbird 1.2 266 Mhz Asus A7M266 Motherboard (comes with 4 USB ports) 256 Megs of 266 Mhz DDR Dimms Memory 30 Maxtor GB UDM 100 7200 rpm Hardrive Generic Floppy 50x Asus CD Rom Drive Asus V1700 GeForce2 MX GPU32 MB SDR Video Card ViewSonic 19" E790 Monitor Creative Sound Blaster Live Value Sound Card Altec Lansing ACS45 Speakers MS Internet Keyboard and Mouse Dlink 538 for home networking system ---------------------------------------- HP CDR-W Burner from my old computer transferred to the new unit. ----------------------------------------- The best description of this machine is a "hot rod" - I opted for higher end speed cpu/memory data processing. Since I'm not into using my computer as a stero or as a gaming machine; I went with upper-mid range Sound, Video card, Speakers and Monitor. I also decided it was high time to experience some real stability in my operating system so I opted for Windows2000 Pro. I've been loading up my software and playing around with the new operating system for the last week and I am very pleased with it. Thinking back over the last 25 years or so it turns out that the computers I have owned pretty much reflected the state of computer development. I started out with a VIC20, which I used as a game machine. As I recall it had a memory of 16K and a CPU that ran at around 1.0 Mhz. Here's a picture of that old VIC20. My next machine was a precursor to laptops - it was a Hyperion Transportable. It featured a 6" screen and as I recall 256 KB memory and a CPU speed of around 4.44 Mhz. Here's a picture of that short lived model. My next machine was a Packard-Bell. It featured a CPU that operated at 66 MHz with a memory of 4 Megs. It also came stock with a 500 Meg hard drive. My last machine was a custom built Pentium II with 266 Mhz worth of CPU processing power and a memory of 128 Megs; hard drive had tripled in size to 1.6 Gigs. And now the latest machine is an ADM with a 1,200 Mhz CPU and a memory of 256 Megs. When I think about the abilities of each of those machines - the progress is nothing less than stunning. I fully expect my "hot rod" of today will look like a turtle within 6 months or so - but I think this machine will last me for several years at least; since I just don't need any more speed. I will probably make a few add-ons over the next few years but the basic machine is a keeper. This article is more in nature of an explanation of why there have been no new articles for over a week - hopefully I can get back to doing articles on a regular basis from this point on.